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Government Watchdog Says SpaceX Falcon 9s Are Prone To Cracks (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader shares an Engadget article: SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets apparently have a serious issue that could delay the company's manned missions. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Government Accountability Office investigated both Boeing and SpaceX -- the corporations that won NASA's space taxi contracts -- and found that Falcon 9's turbine blades suffer from persistent cracks. GAO's preliminary report says these turboblades' tendency to crack is a "major threat to rocket safety," since they pump fuel into Falcon 9's rocket engines. NASA's acting administrator Robert Lightfoot told the WSJ that government officials have known about the issue for months or even years. The agency even told SpaceX that the cracks are too much risk for manned flights. A spokesperson said SpaceX has "qualified [its] engines to be robust" to cracks, but it's now "modifying the design to avoid them altogether."
He hasn't taken quality control seriously in any of his ventures, that is why they are all get-rich-quick schemes.
You mean, the launch reliability of a rocket isn't important? Not even for the Spacecom satellite? A business model based on re-using equipment that isn't fit for reuse is a failed model relying on luck to avoid disaster.
Exactly what I planned to write. Of all of the things SpaceX has done that hasn't proven unreliable, it's the Merlins. Maybe this will change with increasing reuse, but as it stands....
And I agree, bigger problems likely lie elsewhere. I'm still not that comfortable with their having COPVs lacking an outer liner just sitting around in densified LOX, regardless of how they handle load operations.
Next to my desk we have an Ire Extinguisher. Our boss is really assertive, so we like the idea of having it.